People who bought this also bought...

Shirley

Set in a chaotic time in England, during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Caroline Helstone's world is turned upside down when she meets the vivacious Shirley Keeldar. Shirley becomes a beacon of light for Caroline as the two become close friends. However, Caroline is soon shocked to discover that Shirley has won the affections of Robert Moore, the impoverished mill owner whom she loves. Fully representative of Yorkshire life at the time, Brontë's second novel is completely gripping, unrelenting and utterly wrenching in its portrayal.

Agnes Grey

Drawing on her experiences, Anne Bronte wrote her first novel out of a need to inform her contemporaries about the desperate position of unmarried, educated women driven to take up the only "respectable" career open to them - that of a governess.

The Professor

William Crimsworth goes to Brussels to seek his fortune and takes a job teaching at a boarding school for girls. He begins a flirtation with the headmistress, Zoraïde Reuter, but later falls in love with the young pupil-teacher Frances Henri, only to have his courtship thwarted by the jealous Mlle. Reuter. Deeply critical of a society in which relationships between men and women are reduced to power struggles, The Professor was Charlotte Brontë's first novel.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Fleeing a disastrous marriage, Helen Huntingdon retreats to the desolate mansion, Wildfell Hall, with her son, Arthur. There, she makes her living as a painter. Finding it difficult to avoid her neighbors, she is soon an object of speculation and gossip. Brontë portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when society defined a married woman as her husband's property.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

This is the story of a woman's struggle for independence. Helen "Graham" has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage. Exiled to the desolate moorland mansion, she adopts an assumed name and earns her living as a painter.

Daniel Deronda

Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.

Jane Eyre

Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.

Middlemarch

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon's mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

Charlotte Brontë: A Life

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Charlotte Brontë: A Life written and read by Claire Harman. Raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors, watching five beloved siblings sicken and die, haunted by unrequited love: Charlotte Brontë's life has all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Charlotte was a literary visionary, a feminist trailblazer and the driving force behind the whole Brontë family.

Persuasion

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. But events conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.

Adam Bede

George Eliot's first full-length novel Adam Bede is a profound rendering of 19th century English pastoral life. This timeless story of seduction and betrayal follows the virtuous carpenter Adam Bede, whose world is soon disrupted when the all-too-beautiful Hetty betrays him for another villager. Her actions precipitate a turmoil of tragic events that shake the very foundations of their serene rural community.

MRS AUDREY MAWBY says:"A story of country folk in the time of John Wesley"

North and South

Set in the context of Victorian social and medical debate, this novel is about rebellion, posing fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. This revised edition draws on recent theoretical work on gender and class.

The Way We Live Now

In this world of bribes, vendettas and swindling, in which heiresses are gambled and won, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury is 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix has 'the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte - the colossal figure who dominates the book - is a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel... a bloated swindler... a vile city ruffian'.

Ruth

The orphaned heroine Ruth, apprenticed to a dressmaker, is seduced and then abandoned by wealthy Henry Bellingham. Shamed in the eyes of society by her illegitimate son, and yet rejecting the opportunity to marry her seducer, Ruth finds a path that affirms we are not bound to repeat our mistakes.

The Mill on the Floss

As Maggie Tulliver approaches maturity she enters into conflict with family and community over her desire for self-fulfillment. Eliot's exploration of Maggie's dilemma makes this novel as relevant today as it was in the 19th century.

Wives and Daughters

Molly Gibson lost her mother when she was a child. Any stepmother would have been a shock, but the new Mrs Gibson is a self-absorbed, silly little widow, and Molly's unhappiness is compounded by the realisation that her father has come to regret his second marriage.

The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great

The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander's life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas is sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but finds freedom with Alexander the Great after the Macedon army conquers his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper.

Northanger Abbey

When Catherine Morland, a country clergyman's daughter, is invited to spend a season in Bath with the fashionable high society, little does she imagine the delights and perils that await her. Captivated and disconcerted by what she finds, and introduced to the joys of "Gothic novels" by her new friend, Isabella, Catherine longs for mystery and romance. When she is invited to stay with the beguiling Henry Tilney and his family at Northanger Abbey, she expects mystery and intrigue at every turn.

Jude the Obscure

Sexually innocent Jude Fawley is trapped into marriage by seductive Arabella Donn, but their union is an unhappy one and Arabella leaves him. Jude's welcome freedom allows him to pursue his obsession with his pretty cousin Sue Bridehead, a brilliant, charismatic free-thinker who would be his ideal soul-mate if not for her aversion to physical love. When Jude and Sue decide to lead their lives outside marriage they bring down on themselves all the force of a repressive society.

Sense and Sensibility

When Mrs. Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for.

The Moonstone

T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as "the first and the greatest English detective novel". The stone of the title is an enormous diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her 18th birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood.

Something Fresh

The one thing that could be expected to disturb the peace of life at Blandings is the incursion of imposters. And Blandings has imposters like other houses have mice. On this occasion, there are two of them: both intent on a dangerous enterprise.

Publisher's Summary

Arguably Brontë's most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings.

Left by harrowing circumstances to fend for herself in the great capital of a foreign country, Lucy Snowe, the narrator and heroine of Villette, achieves by degrees her independence from both outer necessity and inward grief. Lucy flees from an unhappy past in England to begin a new life as a teacher at a French boarding school in the cosmopolitan capital of Villette. But her struggle for independence is soon overshadowed by her friendship with a worldly English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster. Brontë's strikingly modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still be free.

(P)1996 Blackstone Audio Inc.

What the Critics Say

May convincingly portrays the many moods and complex character of Charlotte Brontë's heroine....Her many voices, with subtle timing, sweep us at a quick clip through a narrative of psychological insight and vividly rendered places, people, and landscapes." (AudioFile)"Villette! Villette! Have you read it? It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power." (George Eliot)"Brontë's finest novel." (Virginia Woolf)

So often British performers (at least the inexperienced ones) fall into the trap of letting their voice fall in the same exact way over and over, but Nadia May fluctuated her voice perfectly so that your ear never tired of listening to her voice. Her performance makes you forget that she is reading to you. Her French accent is superb and often throughout the book the passages are in untranslated French. If I were reading on my own this would probably be an issue, but because of the way Nadia reads it I was able to catch the meaning of the language without knowing exactly what was said.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The performance of Nadia May is the biggest redeeming quality. Other than that, this book struck me as one that you really need to analyze to enjoy. Bronte uses a lot of symbolism and if you don't know her background as the author you may not be privileged to fully comprehending what she is getting at in Villette.

Any additional comments?

This story was insanely boring. It wasn't until a couple chapters in that I realized who the main character was, but for the majority of the book I found myself asking, "Where is this going? Are we even building to anything at all?" Unfortunately the ending wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped it would be.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Maggie

edenton, NC, United States

11/12/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"great CD took listen to while asleep!!!!!"

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Forced myself to listen to the first to CDs sooooo boring couldnt stand any more.

What was most disappointing about Charlotte Brontë’s story?

Boring!

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointed i wasted all the time to download and record this book.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Dennis

BorroloolaAustralia

07/08/07

Overall

"longwinded"

the basic story was ok. this book would have been better in an abridged version. I found myself wanting to fast forward the long winded descriptions. I would not get another book from the author becase of this. I also found the main character a bother. 'Just get up and do something instead of sitting there suffering silently' was what I kept thinking.

4 of 11 people found this review helpful

Dennis

Washington, DC, United States

22/08/07

Overall

"No Jane Eyre"

Villette prattles on and on about nothing, but does have an interesting ending. Lucy Snow is supposed to be an independent woman, and she is, at least outwardly. However, her inner life is soulless and clueless. She would rather purport to civility rather than reveal an emotion. Lucy does make strides towards being broadminded, but in the end, at it is a very good ending, we are left wondering her fate. Does he or doesn't he? Bronte gives us no neat ending and that ploy saves the book from being simpering tripe. By the way, I believe he does.

1 of 5 people found this review helpful

Report Inappropriate Content

If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.